Still throwing: Former Burlington Royals catcher becomes all-star college quarterback

By Bob Sutton / Times-News

Published: Saturday, November 24, 2012 at 11:19 AM.

David Lough, a 2007 Burlington outfielder who reached the major leagues this year, took the opposite path of Doscher, playing college football at Mercyhurst prior to becoming a professional baseball player.

For various reasons, Doscher has an eye on the Royals organization. He’s even aware of some of the makeup of Burlington’s 2012 roster — five years after playing here.

“It was tough to keep in touch with anyone,” Doscher said. “We’ve kept in touch pretty good. I didn’t know how it would be when it didn’t work out with the Royals.

“It worked out better than I thought it would.”

Doscher, who majors in business management, said when Wagner’s season ends, his playing days are probably finished.

“I don’t think it’s too realistic, but you never know,” he said ending up in professional football.

With all that has happened with Nick Doscher since he was one of the top prospects for the first Burlington Royals baseball team in 2007, it’s no wonder the former professional catcher is unfazed by his winding path.

“Can’t even make it up,” said Doscher, the quarterback who’ll play as a Wagner senior today in the Football Championship Division playoffs.

During that summer five-plus years ago, Doscher was a recently turned 20-year-old and one of the younger players on the Burlington team. Move ahead, he’s the 25-year-old directing a football team that includes teenagers.

“We had a bunch of older signees. I was still one of the younger ones,” Doscher said of his time in the Appalachian League. “Now that I’m 25, I’m playing with 17-year-olds who haven’t even turned 18. … It’s kind of like baseball, some of those kids coming here (to the United States) as 16-year-olds.”

Baseball didn’t work out for Doscher, who was released by the parent Kansas City organization less than a year after his Burlington season. This came despite the investment made in the eighth-round draft selection. A career batting average of .208 and one home run — in a Burlington uniform — were in large part the reason.

He was released June 8, 2008 — three years to day that he was drafted.

“That’s a day that I’ll never forget, both positive and negatives,” he said this week, recalling the situation. “I was 21. I thought I would have gotten a little better of a chance.

“After my time with the Royals, I tried to play baseball. I didn’t have any solid offers. I was still in good enough shape after my four years with the Royals. I figured why not give it a try.”

Doscher had roots as a quarterback coming out of New York City. He hadn’t forgotten, nor had others. There wasn’t as much interest from football recruiters as there was several years earlier, when Virginia was among the schools that had expressed interest. This time, Delaware might have been the most notable team on his list of potential destinations.

By January 2009, he enrolled at Wagner and began another pursuit with the school located on New York’s Staten Island.

“It was a little weird when I first got here,” he said. “Getting back into the classroom, I took four years off.”

When he arrived, he was the same age as many of the upperclassmen so he said that helped.

There was also a change in Wagner’s offensive system, meaning Doscher showed up at an ideal time as the Seahawks went to a spread offense. Soon, he had displaced returning starter Adam Farnsworth, a transfer from Iowa.

“I couldn’t imagine it working out any better,” he said. “I don’t know if they were expecting too much out of me. Taking four years off. New York City football isn’t real high on the pecking order, so I think I came with some doubts.

“Being there for that first semester, they helped me out tremendously to get back in the swing of things.”

Now, he’s an All-Northeast Conference first-team quarterback.

Entering today’s first-round home game in the national playoffs against Patriot League champion Colgate, Doscher is Wagner’s all-time leader in total offense with 8,049 yards. He has thrown for 5,902 yards and rushed for another 2,169.

This season, hasn’t tossed an interception since the opener at Florida Atlantic, a string of 191 passes without a pick-off. That has translated into the best passing efficiency rating in the Northeast Conference.

Just like baseball, still hidden behind a facemask, Doscher has made the most of his latest endeavor.

“He’s the face of the program,” said John Beisser, Wagner’s assistant athletics director of media relations. “His true freshman year, he took this league by storm.”

Given Doscher’s uncomfortable parting from baseball, this turned out to be the next-best thing. He hasn’t severed ties with members of the Royals organization. He counts Kansas City third baseman Mike Moustakas as one of his closest friends.

Last winter, he traveled to California to spend time with Moustakas, leading to a visit with former Burlington shortstop Kyle Martin.

And when the big-league Royals visited Yankee Stadium this year, Doscher was there, too, pulling against the team he grew up adoring.

“Blood is thicker than water,” he said, noting the bonds he developed with baseball teammates. “It was weird going into Yankee Stadium and rooting against the Yankees.”

Doscher said spending parts of four seasons in the Royals organization gave him a foundation as he became an adult. He couldn’t simply turn his back on that part of his life.

“I still keep in touch with a lot of guys with the Royals. I talk to Clint Robinson, Derrick Robinson. D-Lough a little bit,” he said, noting connections maintained through social media. “I follow them. Every once in a while I’ll check out how all my old Burlington Royals are doing.”

David Lough, a 2007 Burlington outfielder who reached the major leagues this year, took the opposite path of Doscher, playing college football at Mercyhurst prior to becoming a professional baseball player.

For various reasons, Doscher has an eye on the Royals organization. He’s even aware of some of the makeup of Burlington’s 2012 roster — five years after playing here.

“It was tough to keep in touch with anyone,” Doscher said. “We’ve kept in touch pretty good. I didn’t know how it would be when it didn’t work out with the Royals.

“It worked out better than I thought it would.”

Doscher, who majors in business management, said when Wagner’s season ends, his playing days are probably finished.

“I don’t think it’s too realistic, but you never know,” he said ending up in professional football.

Not to mention his football style has been described as one in which he turns into a fullback when he crosses the line of scrimmage.

“It hurts a little bit getting out of bed,” he said.

Yet the catcher-to-quarterback combination is one of that makes for a nice fit.

“I guess that’s me always playing quarterback,” he said. “I always considered myself to be a leader. If (the younger teammates) see me working hard, that pushes me to be that way.”

Having gone through the rigors of college football and experienced the time commitment, he said playing two sports in college coming out of high school might have been overwhelming.

“Now looking back on it, I don’t think it would have been a very good idea,” he said.

Still, that thirst for baseball is something Doscher might never totally quench even as football has made him an icon on a college campus.

“Just getting out there and competing,” he said. “I still think baseball is the best sport. You’re out there playing every day.

“I had hoped I would have a 20-year big-league career and I wouldn’t have to worry about it,” he said.

So, yes, he misses baseball and all the possibilities that existed for him until a few years ago.

“It was tough. My dreams, since I was a little kid, were to play professional baseball … When you think of professional, you don’t think of the bus trips to Elizabethton, Tenn. You think of playing in Yankee Stadium.”

Now the player who showed up as a promising prospect more than five years ago in a small North Carolina city returned to the city that proclaims to be the world’s largest stage. It’s there, where he rediscovered a piece of athletic success.

“It was a great life experience,” Doscher said of the change of fortunes. “I couldn’t sit around and sulk too much. I wanted to keep going and pursue something else.”